Dreaming
by mlir
Summary: Basically a story set before season one of Dawsons Creek, the way I imagine things could have been and leading to a different outcome than the beginning of the show. (P/J)
1. Default Chapter

Dreaming

Dreaming

Set before the first season, my idea of what the show could have been like.

Disclaimer- I do not own the characters of Dawsons Creek but any additional ones belong to me

Note- Thoughts in Italics

This is my first attempt, so tell me how to improve or if I'm simply wasting my time.

Chapter One

"Joey…."

"Joey, you're my soulmate." Dawson Leery, a look of reverence on his face and love in his eyes.

"Joey!" Her eyes flew open and her dreamy half-smile tightened into a grimace. 

"Wind and face changing, Joey." Pacey looked daft as ever, she thought, in enormous swamping shorts and palm-tree shirt fluttering at some places, but clinging to damp patches. He seemed delighted to have soured her expression.

Joey was sat on the grass outside of her house enjoying the warm and breezy summer and her daydream.

"Witter. I know that's what happened to you but it's not my problem." Said in acidic tones, her brown eyes, narrow slits.

"You pain me, fair lady"- He clamped both hands over his chest.

"The heart- it's on the other side- braindead." She unconsciously began to pull at the grass, making a mound of shrivelled ends.

"Heart?" Mock-confused.

"Yeah, right." Joey rolled her eyes and pushed off her hands onto her feet. She strode to her house, slamming the door.

Pacey's blue eyes lightened and he whistled as he continued to walk right behind her- opening the door without knocking and throwing himself onto her couch.

"Now, come, come. It's not every day you have the delight of my company." 

_Rhhh! No stop Potter. Don't let him wind you up. Think Dawson, dream Dawson_. She breathed a long steadying sigh and forced a smile onto her face. "Right Pacey. What do you want?" This was meant to sound a lot more amiable. As it was, the words were ground out between her teeth.

If she expected Pacey to be taken aback by this change of tact, she was disappointed as his grin grew wider. He sat up and ran his hands through his hair, making it stand up in tufts.

"I wonder how it is that I have such a dramatic effect on you." He mused smugly. "All these repressed emotions Joey." Frowning solemnly.

Joey WOULD NOT get angry. So what if the guy had hounded her from her dreams, followed her uninvited into her house, had been a curse on her life for each one of those fifteen years. Without realising what she had done, her hands had tightened around a rolling pin, and some instinct made her, with murderous brown eyes, approach Pacey. "Out!" she screamed threateningly, pin aloft.

"'K- if you don't want to face up to it that's fine…"

Joey was surprised when he rose and headed for the door-uncertainly she followed.

"Got ya!"- he whirled around and wrestled the weapon from her grip, it clattered to the floor. PACEY. She thumped clenched fists against his chest, backing him up to the door.

Their gazes were locked- hers fierce, his challenging. They held the stare. For so long in fact, they didn't notice their grip on one another had changed. Bodies still thrust together- her both hands on the door, his both at her waist.

It was like electricity, Joey thought, dazed, watching the storm in his eyes now trying to discover his emotion. "Pacey……"

She dropped both hands so he was no longer trapped, but he didn't move an inch. They were so close, breath mingling, bodies heated.

Joey wonderingly raised a hand to his hair, in utter disbelief at her own body's action, as his eyes finally dropped from hers, lowering to her mouth. His lips began to descend for a kiss..

..When his head jerked back suddenly. His face went blank. "Well Joey, you do look flustered."

What? She dropped a mask over her own confusion. "You been to summer school Pace? Here's the rundown, you fail charm but ace obnoxious."

A tight smile briefly appeared. "Yeah, well you passed sarcastic and uptight bitch courses with extra credit in 'I've got terminal PMS!'"

She stalked away from him, and picked up the phone, pressing a memorised number quickly. "Dawson? Movie night still on?" 

She began to converse with him. Or rather, listen, as he excitedly began to summarise the mesmerising night they would have. 

When she turned around, the door was open and Pacey was gone.

"Ow!" Pacey exclaimed as he examined his fisted hand, the hand he had just hurled against his locker.

"Feelings" he murmured, giving up any attempt to rush into the class he was already late for- the bell had sounded before he'd even arrived at school and no pupils were to be seen. He concentrated on the distant voices, dissolving into a calming hiss as he sat on the ground, legs cast out before him, head against the lockers- the lower ridges poking into his skin, as he wriggled uncomfortably.

His hand was still smarting, as he gazed at it dispassionately. _I don't even believe in fate. We have choices right? _

Yesterday had been the last day of the summer holidays. Having successfully summoned the willpower to keep away from Joey Potter for the duration of the holidays, he had not been able to resist going to see her on that last day. _What a mistake that turned out to be._ He stretched his fingers out gingerly and lay them on the soothing cool of the tiles beside him. 

_I'm not going to be philosophically challenged by this. Things cannot happen for logical reasons. At least not by my logical reasoning. It's all just bad luck._

BANG 

The door crashed shut. Pacey opened the eyes he had closed, his heart sinking. He didn't even attempt to rise. _More bad luck then Witter._

Joey's brown hair swung unheeded as she stormed the corridor, muttering furiously to herself. Her eyes were straight ahead, her chin thrust upwards in anger. She rounded a corner and promptly tripped on a pair of sprawled legs thudding to the floor. Momentarily winded, Pacey could see she was in no condition to start the stream of verbal abuse he was sure she had lined up for him. Sighing, he stood and pulled her ungraciously to her feet.

"Joey." Defeatedly.

"Pacey," she gasped. "Might have known." Questions hovered in her eyes, but Pacey turned away. He took a slow step away from her, and then took two small backward ones so he was just behind her.

_Can't just bleeding leave her here. I hate feelings, I hate hormones. _

He wound one arm around her waist, which he figured she was too surprised to try and move and headed towards her first class. "You OK?" He asked as they stood outside the room.

Her teeth nibbled on her lower lip, and he was glad that mind reading wasn't a Joey Potter ability. As her face reflected shock he reconsidered. _Nah, surely not, I mean she'd have killed me by now._

It was then he realised that his hand had, of its own accord, began to smooth the flyaway tangles of her hair. _Damn_. He blushes and backed away, stammering, "I m-mean you don't- you don't h-hurt anywhere?"

She shook her head. He wiped a hand over his face, attempting to hide it briefly and went back down the corridor, not beginning to run until he reached the safety of the blustering air outside of the school.


	2. Movie Night

Dreaming - Movie Night

Disclaimer- just borrowing

Note- Joey's thoughts in Italics

Dawson reaches blindly across his bed for popcorn, his hand brushing Joey's thigh before swooping into the glass bowl beside it and rising to stuff the salted snack into his mouth, never once letting his avid gaze leave the screen.

Joey sighs discontentedly, unknowingly scowling at Dawson as the previous days events flood back into her mind. _Gosh, how much sexual teasing can a girl take_ she thinks sarcastically to herself, the humour wasted as Dawson is in no state to hear.

_Not that he'd want to know anyway… my unrequited love for him and a near kiss with Pacey. A near kiss with Pacey! Yuck. How the hell did that happen? Pacey, with his absurd pudding bowl haircut and his annoying, sniping remarks. Pacey: the ludicrous, the deprived horn-dog. He probably has a thousand pornos under his bed. Not that he'll get any soon… or **ever**_.

"Joey!"

"Huh?"

"That was the second time I called you." Dawson explains in an astonished tone, blinking away wide eyes. "The movie finished two minutes ago. Are you not feeling up to gratification by articulation tonight?"

"You want to discover my instinctual reaction to the movie by quizzing me before considered analysis?" Says Joey slowly.

"Are you ok Joey?" Asks Dawson, looking at her more closely for the first time that night. _For the first time ever_. Her hesitant brown eyes rise from the pattern of the bedspread, and she can feel her heart shivering a little. _What would he see? _

"Are you sure you've been getting enough sleep? You really don't look that brilliant." The compliment is cast off as he hops down from the bed and presses rewind manually. Joey feels herself smiling as she recalls Pacey spilling soda in the remote, making the batteries stick together, and doing god-knows-what to the internals, so that it wouldn't work even with new ones.

A glower quickly overtakes her glow when she realises Pacey is on her mind again. _I'll have to stick a couple of pornos in there to keep him company_ she quips to herself, complete with bitchy smirk, until an awareness of what that would entail develops and reprimands her mind. She can just imagine Pacey chortling, blue eyes dancing in glee.

"Joey?"

_Dammit_. She actually jumps this time as Dawson nearly shouts her name.

"What's bothering you? I saw a film like this once. A girl was possessed by the…"

She blanks Dawson out. _Raging hormones. Look what they are doing to me. I'm becoming a girl with less intelligent thought processes than Pamela Anderson's breasts. **They'd keep Pacey really good company**_ some dark part of her mind offers, and she groans externally.

_Focus. _"… but in the finale the audience were to understand that she was the demon and not possessed at all. It was incredibly thought provoking."

"And I missed it." Says Joey, having heard just enough to grasp it hadn't been a movie night offering.

"Indeed, Miss Josephine you did not have the delight." Comes Pacey's voice from the doorway, accompanied by a queer lurch of her heart.

" Oh dear, Dawson, did you pass up Pacey's favourite mighty ducks movie to watch something that required an IQ." Says Joey mocking the boy her eyes shoot daggers at, even as they appraise his handsome face, those magnetic eyes, and clever smirk.

_Smirk. _She begins to recognise that his opening shot can be meant in another way. In a way that referred to that day in her house.

"Anyways, how are you doing Dawson, old friend." He ambles into the room, and sinks onto his knees at Dawson's bed, lifting the cover and feeling underneath.

Before Dawson can speak, Joey's voice comes, clear and condescending. "Looking for your marbles?"

"Nope… my other brain cell."

"To keep the one you have left company."

"No, to be friends with your **single **one. She doesn't much like the one I currently own. Strikes me as a bit of an ice queen." His retort is a little breathless, as his searching task becomes more arduous.

"Moron."

"Prude."

"Dumb-Ass"

"Guys quit it," Dawson finally cuts in, bringing their quick fire round of insults to a halt. "As entertaining and thoroughly comforting as an illustration of the steady state of the universe as you are, I am curious as to what you are doing under my bed Pacey."

At this point, Pacey's head pops up, a winning smile breaking his cheeks. "Found it," he gasps, holding up a crumpled piece of paper in one fist.

"What is it Pacey?" Inquires Dawson. 

"My math homework."

"What. You're gonna hand it in like that?" Exclaims Joey incredulously.

"Well yeah… I'll say the dog chewed but did not eat." He says, backing out of the door. "And taking the lowly way out of Dawson's palace, here I go. See you later guys."

"You ready for another film Joey?"

"Yes." Her reply is quick. It'd save her from trying to make comments on one she only caught glimpses of in between the ferocious working of her mind. However, as Dawson's weight settles onto to the bed beside her again, she can't help wondering when movie night became such a task. 

In the darkened room, the TV lights flicker over Dawson's face intermittently highlighting and shadowing the blond of his hair, the angle of his cheeks, as Joey watches on, frowning. 


	3. The Muse

Dreaming Chapter Three- The Muse

Thoughts in Italics

Thanks to Wild in the Streets for the beta

"It was Pacey's idea." States Dawson as he squeezes into a seat in the crowded cafeteria and positions his tray next to Joey's. She glares at Pacey, her face set in an** I'm so not surprised **expression.

"Look kiddies, it's like this," Pacey grins, "Dawson needs inspiration and I am his muse. Not in a sex way though," he adds hurriedly

"You sure about that Pace?" Joey raises an eyebrow inquiringly. "The fact such a thought crossed your mind could have some meaning."

"Potter, sex is **always** on my mind." A wink in her direction and Joey finds herself shamefully blushing. _Was he thinking about sex the day we almost… NO, stop that thought right there. God, he is so nauseating, irritating, frustrating._ Her mental list stalls as her body tightens, feeling the physical impact of the emotions he is provoking in her. Forcing her body to loosen up, she watches Dawson's bright face as he laughs at something Pacey is sharing.

"Here's Dawson," Pacey holds up a fry, "and this is his camera," he continues in an explanatory tone, squashing the pea into the fry and both of them into the "elephant scab" mystery meat.

"That's it?" Joey frowns, confused.

"Well yeah, he just waits, as silent and still as he can possibly be, all through the night if necessary, letting the dark eat up the sky, and when he's least expecting it…"

"Pacey!" Joey fumes, embarrassed at having jumped out of her seat when he clapped his hands right in front of her, directly in view of a table of giggling spectators.

Pacey just sits looking full of mirth and delight. _Smug. _A sulky expression overcomes her features.

Unperturbed by his friends' bickering, Dawson puts his fork down. "Upon consideration, my hypothesis is that a favourable outcome will result from this." A spark of excitement lights within him.

_A new challenge for our young Speilburg _"Dawson, can't you see this is not a very good idea. You are intruding on people's private lives. I'm not surprised at Pacey's voyeurism, but I thought you might be a little more creative. A film isn't about the real world; it's more about the hidden one. Where emotions steer the stories."

Dawson opens his mouth, ready to argue his case, but Pacey feels the need to defend his brainchild. "Yes, but where do the emotions in films play out Joey? They distort the characters' faces; they make the events what they are. It's an ignition for his imagination; he sees the man on the screen, he watches his mannerisms, notes his style, his expression and his mind reacts and builds a history for the man, gives the man a reason to be out that day, gives a motive for all the things he detects about that man, and from that man a character and a story is born. The tale being not one bit intrusive, because it is not reality." A pause for breath is taken as Joey looks on in wonder. Was that Pacey? the assured passion of his speech, as he leans towards her, and his attractiveness once again hits her with the sheer force of a frying pan… _or should that be a rolling pin_ the memory makes her smile.

He gazes back at her, and she quickly recovers. _Smiling at Pacey_,_ better stop that_. 

"Round one to Pacey." Declares Dawson

"Jeez, didn't realise this thing was so heavy" Pacey complains, as he struggles under the weight of Dawson's film equipment. 

"Well you are my divine angel of film-making Pacey,"

"Yeah, laugh all you like Dawson." He grinds out, "you know, my friend, you are extremely lucky to have my help and wisdom, seeing as the ice queen has dropped out of her devotional Dawson duties."

"Her what? Joey's working." Dawson doesn't quite understand Pacey's comment, but lets it pass _No doubt his mind is on more fundamentally important things than his adoring sidekick. Damn that girl, why she continues in her Dawson worship when he's clearly as blind as a forty-year-old who's never had a woman, is far beyond my comprehension._

He immediately feels slightly guilty for his silent outburst of best friend anger, "So, do you want me to help set it up? Although I am a bit tired after carrying it out all the way to the front of your house."

"It's ok Pace, I can manage from here." Dawson replies.

" I don't understand why you don't take it someplace else. Not a lot is going to occur in your front yard. The most exciting footage you're likely to capture is a snail menage a trios."

" I'm not making a porn movie," Dawson's expression is already distant, _yup, he's in film land again_.

"Well, love to stay and watch the action, but I've got much to do before the day is done." _Like visit Joey. Not that I'm delusional enough to think all our pointed remarks have **something **more to them._

"Yeah," he mutters, and Pacey doesn't know whether Dawson heard his last words or not. _Never mind_, he strides off towards his borrowed police transportation.

"Lets have some service here!" Booms Pacey's voice as he saddles a chair and bangs on the counter in front of him. 

"Pacey," Joey hisses, frowning at him, "can't you see I'm busy."

"Well no, but it'd be my guess that you have **never** got busy." He smirks, and waggles his eyebrows. "But today could be your lucky day."

"Why, is Bessie suddenly going to declare she's rich and stop treating me like a slave." Spoken whilst energetically scrubbing the counter surface.

"No, I am going to invite you to spend time with your beloved."

Joey feels suddenly light-headed, "I know we nearly kissed but I wouldn't go that far Pace," She finally manages to try and snap.

Her interpretation of his words stuns Pacey and his attention remains fixed on her reactions.

She gives up doing any work, she's merely staring at him, her mind working furiously. "Besides, we don't get on anyway, and all you think about is sex, and you annoy me beyond reason **and** you are a moron." 

"But I'm awfully cute," he breaks in slowly.

_Don't blush_ "You are not."

"Am too"

"Are so not"

"Joey," Bessie emerges from the kitchen, and Joey groans knowing she's been caught not doing work again. 

"Getting right to it Bessie," she plasters on a smile. "Just kick Mr Delinquent out" her eyes narrow in his direction.

"Only dropped by to tell you home movies will be at eight tonight." Pacey stands up and begins to head for the door, _Thank God_

"You know, with your Dawson." He shoots before the door swings shut and Joey realises her mistake.


	4. Part One

1 Thanks wild in the streets for betaing and bugging  
  
2 Dreaming Chapter Four  
  
Part One  
  
Journal  
  
I believe in girl power. Not of the 'Spice girl marketing ploy and skimpy clothing' kind but the type that liberates women and lets us achieve our intellectual potential. Having declared one of my deep beliefs in the fear that the 'future me' will think I'm as spunky as a mills and boon heroine, I shall now go on to despair over boys skimming quickly over the self-aware irony.  
  
The intellectual side of me should find this business all so simple. I have a perfect life partner (if he would only realise it). Dawson offers creative stimulus, in the dreary consumer faux-culture driven Capeside (those tourist shops make some money). He dreams. I've had to grow up quickly, the death of my mother, the shunning of my peers, they all force me to realise the real world… the world beyond the beauty and imagination, and I want those qualities so badly. He makes me think, we argue, and I dream. I dream about him, and the sheer enthusiasm he has for life. Only the real undreamy part of me is such a cynic, I find it silly that I should be enraptured by his awe.  
  
Pacey…. Ok, I admit it; he's gorgeous, in an annoying type of way; he's clever, in a biting and ass holey type of way. He's part of the real world, put upon him by his family, and he has real pain, pain like mine that I'm afraid to touch. Afraid to, but some part of me wants to badly.  
  
I'm scared, and I want things to be like they were. Not some strange and scary Pacey hormonal take-over, just Dawson and I, dancing through my unrequited yearning in exasperation, but safe.  
  
"Joey!" Joey snaps shut her journal at the sound of Bessie's booming voice, ramming it in the drawer of her beside table, and running down the stairs, pulling her long hair into a clip as she goes.  
  
"Remember you have to work tonight."  
  
"Thanks Bessie." Joey replies sarcastically.  
  
"Dinner money's on the counter,"  
  
"Yes Bessie."  
  
"Jeez what got up your ass?" sounds a male voice.  
  
Joey's eyes flash in the direction of the door. "You Pacey." Not thinking literally of course.  
  
"What's he doing here?" She demands, swinging round to face Bessie.  
  
"Said he's taking you to school," Bessie replies evenly, unsurprised by Joey's mood. "You should be grateful," she adds, in a flash of amusement at her sister's annoyance.  
  
Pacey grins, "Yes Joey, did'ya hear that?" He addresses Bessie, "but she's never grateful, not for anything I do for her. The ice queen would never stoop to utter a word of appreciation to her humblest slave."  
  
"Pacey, you are here. Why?"  
  
"I, Ms high and hard-of hearing, am here to take you to school in your luxury vehicle."  
  
Damn him, Joey frowns extra hard at him to tell him this is not a good idea.  
  
"Anyone would think you didn't like me visiting," he proclaims, his tone injured but his face knowing and smirking.  
  
Knowing. God damn him, he knows. He knows I find him attractive, he knows. And he's making fun of me; referring to the last time he came here (but didn't come here) and his dirty thoughts are infecting me.  
  
Pacey watches the redness creep through her features curiously, and she is uncomfortably aware of that gaze as she slams the fridge door and pours juice into a glass.  
  
He sighs and enters the kitchen to sit down and wait. She always has to be so awkward.  
  
Ignoring him completely seems the best option to take, and Joey swigs back her juice in record speed and storms out of the door.  
  
"See ya later Bess," gasps Pacey, laughing and racing out to catch up to her.  
  
I don't fancy you Pacey. I don't find you at all physically compelling, in fact today you look even more dishevelled than usual, and your smile is not cute so don't stand there grinning like a Pacey in a sex shop.  
  
"Jo, we need to talk." He sounds quite earnest.  
  
"No, Pacey, you need to shut up and cease sounding like a bad soap on WB."  
  
"You watch soaps?" The twinkle is back in his eyes.  
  
"Yes, and I'm longing to bear all on Jerry Springer."  
  
He raises one eyebrow. "You could do that in my room. No censored signs."  
  
"Pig." Joey picks up her speed, and yanks open the door to her "luxury" stolen cop car.  
  
"Prude" Pacey gets in the driver's seat.  
  
"Morning Joey," Dawson interjects brightly.  
  
"Hey Dawson," catching Pacey's eye in the mirror and ignoring the little jolt it brings, she smiles warmly in Dawsons direction. Well in the direction of his back.  
  
Glad his presence seems to have averted an argument, Dawson starts to talk excitedly about the film project. "Joey, I'd love you to study the footage I've uncovered, you busy tonight?"  
  
"She'll be over," says Pacey not leaving Joey the chance to answer for herself.  
  
"Bite me."  
  
"Later," Pacey's answers, turning the car round dangerously fast, and screeching his way towards the school. 


End file.
